Grand Village of the Natchez, Archaeological site with ceremonial mounds in Natchez, Mississippi, US

The Grand Village of the Natchez is a 128.1-acre archaeological site with three platform mounds built by the Plaquemine culture and later used by the Natchez. The Sun and Temple Mounds were reconstructed to their original dimensions; the Abandoned Mound was not. A museum holds excavated artifacts and a reconstructed Natchez house.

Construction of the three platform mounds began around 1200 CE during the Anna phase of the Plaquemine culture, with a second major building phase in the mid-15th century; all soils were carried by hand, probably in woven baskets. Between 1682 and 1729 the Natchez made the village their main ceremonial center, replacing Emerald Mound, and from 1700 to 1730 built the Great Sun's residence on Mound B and the Sun Temple with its charnel house on Mound C. After the 1729 attack on Fort Rosalie and the French retaliation, the Natchez abandoned the site.

The three platform mounds were the setting for the Natchez tribe's main political and religious ceremonies between 1682 and 1729, as recorded in French accounts. Mound B held the residence of the Great Sun, the paramount chief, while Mound C carried the Sun Temple with a charnel house for the remains of the elite. The site had replaced Emerald Mound in this role.

The site lies off U.S. Highway 61 in south Natchez, with the museum, a reconstructed Natchez house, a picnic pavilion and nature trails on the grounds. Paths run from the museum to the three mounds and along St. Catherine's Creek. The terrain is level but the paths are unpaved in places.

The three mounds were long buried under loess soil and only partly eroded by St. Catherine's Creek before excavations in 1930 brought them to light. Researchers first labelled them Mounds A, B and C; they are now called Abandoned Mound, Sun Mound and Temple Mound. Only the Sun and Temple Mounds were excavated and rebuilt to their original dimensions.